The New Yokel

New Farmers’ Market Opens: First Cage Fight Planned

The impressive new Blacksburg Market Square and Farmers’ Market off Draper Road  had its grand opening Saturday. 

The site immediately attracted the attention of UFC mixed martial arts promoter Foghorn Egghorn, a rooster who plans to sponsor a real birdcage fight under the timber frames on a future Saturday. 

 

“Feathers will fly!” boomed Egghorn, stating the obvious chicken cliché.

“This will be a totally organic, controlled cage fight, staged in an egg-shaped, eggtagon cage,” added the big-breasted, fancy-tailed promoter who owns Chanticleer Productions, a pay-per-view fight network. (Egghorn appeared unruffled by local vendors clearly eyeing him for their own egg-laying devices.)

The main card will feature none other than Virginia Tech’s Hokie Bird versus UFC cartoon champ, Tweety Bird.

 

Tweety, or “Tweebee,” as he is known to his barnyard homies, already has the promotional yokehold on his maroon rival, taunting the bigger bird on ESPN commercials: “I taut I taw a scartee bird? I did, I did tee a scartee bird!”

Breaking News: Obama Clears Drill Field For Drill Field

 

President Obama has followed up his surprising announcement about oil exploration off Virginia’s coast by also declaring onshore drilling at Virginia Tech's Drill Field.

“Vent the future!” shouted VT drilling proponents, many who gathered in front of Burruss Hall to cheer the new geothermal and oil well markers staked on the former Frisbee green space.

Nearby Ultimate players cursed the pro drill folks and vowed to use Green Peace “anti-whaling tactics” to thwart the drilling. How that will pan out remains a mystery.

Meanwhile, students protesting the school’s present dirty coal usage seem baffled at being upstaged.

Lastly, the rarely reported on secret duck pond hydro-project, Green Scum Dam, has new life. 

 *Pretty picture I took of Duck Pond's ancient spillover...before summer pond scum sets in.

Local Tar Heel Fans Think Team’s In Final Four

Blacksburg bar patrons were entertained Wednesday night by local Tar Heel fans and alumni, all cheering "Final Four! Final Four! Repeat! Repeat!"

 

The Easter Egg blue-clad Tar Heel faithful of Blacksburg hooted and hollered and stuck out their chests, still not understanding the Tar Heels are in the NIT, the tournament no one in America follows except the schools  invited, if that. 

The UNC men’s basketball (26-16) team will play in the NIT finals against the mighty Dayton Kite Flyers, or the Almighty Akron Zip Locks, who have agreed to substitute if the Dayton team bus misses their exit ramps into New York City.

VT Pretty Day Warning Certified by NOAA

Virginia Tech has completed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration’s National Pretty Day Warning for locals, PrettyDayReady® 

The new Hokie Hotline (not too hot, but pleasant, balmy), will warn Montgomery County citizens when the weather is far too beautiful outside to show up for their jobs stuck under sickly florescent  lights.

**PrettyDayWarning locales have a 100% compliance record. Big surprise.

Blacksburg Weather Service groundhog forecaster Dr. Neal Hammond [see previous Feb 4th post] took a moment from cussing and digging out his water-logged home on Kraft Drive to provide an overview:

 

 "When Tech employees or locals need to use a 'sick day' because the weather is too sweet to do this thing we call WORK! then I jump into action,” Hammond said. "The program is voluntary and provides communities with tips and advice from emergency managers.  Now can't you see I have digging to do #**%!!"

To be recoginzed as PrettyDayReady, a community must:

Be sunblock ready

Fishing gear ready

Sun patio ready

Excuse-for-boss ready

Garden tool ready

Avoid all computers and cell phones

[related: StormReady story: http://www.wdbj7.com/global/story.asp?s=12220506]

Blacksburg Motor Company Still Motorless

Despite huge new letters and spruced-up grounds, BLACKSBURG MOTOR CO. has yet to sell one automobile.

A receptionist at the building replied: “What?” when asked about sales figures.

A local citizen headed to the nearby Town Hall to complain about her water bill alluded to the building as housing “town offices or something.” 

However, least reliable sources doubt this is so, because, well, because whoever heard of municipal offices with NO SIGNS! out front indicating what is in the building, but GIANT letters which indicated it was a MOTOR COMPANY? 

Locals remain skeptical.

Tourists and visitors, baffled.

U.S. Census Peeping Tom Director Scolds Blacksburgers

 The U.S. Census Bureau Director has cited Blacksburg for over-reporting 10,389 household peeps as yellow, pink and blue. The U.S. Census Bureau Director reminds local families:  allowing "the kids" to fill out the census form is a BAD idea! Please do not entrust any household member under the age of 18 with the census forms. Try again. Thank you.

 

Yellowhenge Gets Grant Funding

Blacksburg’s not-so-famous Yellowhenge site has secured an archeological grant from the Virginia Association for the Preservation of Odd Peoples. 

The prehistoric yellow markers, located in the old Annie Kay’s Whole Foods parking lot across from Backstreets on Main Street, are perhaps two-thousand years old, and were erected by the Crayola Creek Indians, a people who worshiped a color, canary yellow.

 Also, the strange native's Petri glyphs, or rock art,  show the crayon colorists had, well, a really, really hard time staying inside the lines.

 

Addison Caldwell Statue Caught Walking Home

 Virginia Tech campus police were on high alert this week as the well-known bronze statue of the school’s first student, Addison Caldwell, tried once again to walk home to Sinking Creek in Giles County. 

 

The crook-armed cadet was stopped on North Main Street outside the YMCA Thrift Shop by an excited store customer who tried to purchase him for ten bucks, but an alert patrol officer recognized the statue and intervened. Addison was then returned to his pedestrian pedestal in the upper quad. 

The story of the first student to enroll for classes at what was then Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (V.A.M.C.), is famous for the 28-mile walk Caldwell made to campus on October 1^st, 1872. 

This is the third time the sneaky bronze Caldwell has attempted to skip school this year. 

 “I suppose you can’t blame him,” said alert patrol officer Vince Jenkins. “After all, he did graduate -- what, over a hundred years ago, right? I’d want to go home too. And he is stuck in that walking position. I mean, yeah, I’d want to keep going somewhere. Especially since it's spring break."

A least reliable source also found a very moldy 1874 Bugle, VMAC's first yearbook, in Newman Library, and Addison can be found on page 12 in a humorous candid shot walking across a muddy field in just his long john's and a woman's bonnet. Barely legible under the grainy picture is the caption:  "Cadet Addison 'Mad Addy,' Caldwell. Voted 'Most Likely To Skip Milking Cows.'"

 As usual, Virginia Tech Media Relations had no comment about “your silly stories, Mr. Wills.”

*The Long Way Home:  Local poor boy, Addison Caldwell, below, taking a circuitous route home. Police believe the wily statue had hoped to elude capture by walking through town, rather than treading the more direct historical route.

 

Drill Field Drive Open To NASCAR Driver

Denny Hamlin, a Nextel NASCAR driver, 11 (his car's number, not his age), has been test driving his newest engine on Drill Field Drive, the road which circles the Virginia Tech campus's large open space.  Hamlin, a native Virginian and Hokies fan, drives a FedEx-sponsored vehicle for the Joe Gibbs racing team.

 A least reliable source says university officials were okay with the popular driver's car, as long as Hamlin displays a visitor's tag somewhere in his window.

Drill Field Drive's oval short track, which resembles many of the stock car racing circuit tracks in the south, should prove an exciting agility test for local BT bus drivers trying to avoid Hamlin. 

Staff and employees are advised to yield for the car which will be driving close to 200 mph in the 15 mph zone.  All students are advised any oblivious-to-traffic-cell-phone/texting-ipod-zombie-ambling should be altered if they wish not to die in crosswalks. Bicyclists -- stay home!

Sister Wendy’s Twin Brother In Town to Critique Hokie Bird Statues

 

Brother Wendell Beckett, the somewhat less famous twin brother of popular British art critic, Sister Wendy Beckett, stopped in town recently to critique the local Hokie Bird statues. Brother Wendell, who sports a goatee and dons a nun’s habit just like his sister (for reasons The New Yokel didn’t ask), spoke gently and kindly of the local artists’ curious Hokie Bird mascot creations.

“This one delights me as did the golden sarcophagus of the boy king, Tut Uncommon,” Beckett said, clasping his hands very Wendy-like while a camera crew recorded the scene outside the National Bank of Blacksburg on Main Street.

But then sibling turned sinister on sister…

“But was I, Brother Wendell, invited to Egypt! Oh no! Not me!” he thundered, pointing a craggy finger skyward like Charlton Heston in drag.

Local drivers stopped text-messaging to watch the drama...

“My camera-hogging sister got to see Tut, but not Brother Wendell! Oh, she’s soooooo charming with her buck-toothed grin and coke-bottle glasses magnifying her persona. And that flowing black-and-white garb, so saintly! Please! Who is she kidding, huh? I was the sibling who dropped out of art school and looked after the family butcher business because dear Wendy was too busy saying her rosary to help slaughter animals. So she gets invited to critique Vemeer and Titian and Van Gogh. And I’m left with turkey leftovers!

Brother Wendell then kicked the Hokie Bird statue and was later spotted fleeing town, a seething swish of black-cloaked anger, holding a pink ticket for “Disorderly contact with a local religious icon,” issued by downtown bike cop, father Chico da Blacksburg.